apinae @apinae@qoto.org

Reminder to #journalists that I built Storywrangler while I was #dataVisualization artist-in-residence at the University of Vermont's Computational Story Lab and it provides ngram timeseries from the #Twitter firehose (10% sample), more than 100bn tweets

Here's "mastodon" frequency this year 🤯 https://storywrangling.org/ngrams?ngrams=mastodon

Paper: https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.abe6534

#journalism #socialScience #mastodon #metafedi

The call for PhDs is now open at the #EuropeanUniversityInstitute #EUI in Florence, Italy (4 yrs funding, exchanges, plus generous on-demand research & conference grants; I archived in 8 states). These funded PhDs (c.120 total) are across 4 departments #History (mine), #SocialScience & #PoliticalScience (SPS), #Law, & #Economics. I highly recommend applying &/or sharing! Happy to answer questions & advise.

Deadline: 31 January

https://www.eui.eu/en/services/academic-service/doctoral-programme

(I took this in an off-site supervision)

@albinokid

Tip 1: Use hashtags. There's no algorithm to suggest followers or shove posts into your feed in the hopes you follow someone.

Tip 2: Boost (re-post) toots liberally. *You* are the algorithm.

Tip 3: Use CW (content warnings / content wrappers) to discuss politics, the meta.

Tip 4: To create "threads", make the first post public and each reply "unlisted" to prevent clogging up your instance's feed.

Tip 5: Provide text descriptions, even just basic ones, when attaching photos or media.

Tip 6: Use the "report" features for moderating trolls so your admins can take action.

Seriously though, fedi was *built* by furries, trans and queer folk, disabled neurodivergent people.

This is *the reason* the culture here is what it is. Why CWs are a thing. Why image descriptions are a thing. Why privacy matters here. Why moderation tools not only exist, but are usable — and used.

If you had joined and asked yourself "wow, how come this place is so chill and kinda… nice?" — that's thanks to all the nice people from communities some people call "weird".

So #KeepFediWeird.

Hey, if you want to be "verified" on the fediverse as being _actually you_, you don't need some third party to verify you or to check some list.

Got a domain you own, that's obvs you?

Paste `<a rel="me" href="https://your.server/@your_username">Mastodon</a>`into the html on that domain, add that domain to your profile links, bam, verified at least as comprehensively as a lot of folks on birdsite.

If this seems hard, I will help you! You can verify yourself, promise!

(boosts for reach a-ok)

One thing that was super common on Mastodon / Fediverse prior to this mass migration was adding image descriptions to help be accessible to our many blind and partially sighted users here. Many people won't boost posts without them.
Please consider adding alt text to your images when you can.

Mastodon will update to 4.0 soon! Here are the most exciting new features (in addition to fixes & changes):

- ability to follow hashtags
- ability to filter by language
- ability to translate posts
- ability to post HEIC files (i.e. your iPhone’s native photo format)
- define user roles (big deal for admins)
- define sign-up process on your Instance (admins again)

See all changes here: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases/tag/v4.0.0rc1

Thanks, @Gargron and @Mastodon Team. #Mastodon4

A reminder for anyone new to mastodon who might not be happy with some of the racist and bad actors out there on other servers... Just import the fediblock list to your personal blocks and you will be safe from the vast majority of bad actors.

**Election day in the US is tomorrow, Tuesday, November 8**. Remember to bring your ID!
You can look up your **polling location** and **sample ballot** here: https://www.vote.org/ .
20 states + DC allow you to register and vote at the same time. More info here: https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/same-day-registration.aspx
#moa